5 Forgotten Kennedys and Their Tragic Fates

On too many occasions, the death of a Kennedy has arrested the nation. But long before Camelot, the famously positive Boston family with the winning smiles had already endured great loss again and again.

Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy

Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt, seeing the decline of the Protestant ruling class with its regrettable habit of having only one or two children, advocated with typical vigor for larger families. But everyone in America knew the sort of family he was really worried about: the Kennedys. When one Brookline, Mass, paper announced the birth of yet another Kennedy child in 1921, it snidely characterized the clan as "ardent followers of the Roosevelt doctrine and dead set against race suicide."

But in the Kennedys' case, more children only translated to greater risk of heartbreak. Kathleen Kennedy, the second daughter among the nine Kennedy children and by many accounts the liveliest, took full advantage of the family's residence in England when her father was Ambassador to the Court of St. James. She charmed William Cavendish, the heir apparent to the 10th Duke of Devonshire, and became the Marchioness of Hartington in May 1944. After Cavendish died four months later at the hands of a German sniper, Kick took up with yet another member of the nobility and, by the spring of 1948, was preparing to marry again (a second Protestant that her mother wouldn't speak to). But during a trip the couple took in a brutal storm—some say they were rushing to seek her father's approval before they wed—the plane went down, killing the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam and his 28 year old fiancée.

Joe Kennedy, Jr.

Joe Kennedy, Jr.

Joe, the first born of the nine Kennedy children (on his father's left, with his brother Jack), was planning to run for Congress in the 11th District after he returned from the war. But in August of 1944, he volunteered to pilot a plane into a complex of Nazi V-3 cannons just across the English Channel near Calais. The plan involved arming the explosives and parachuting out at the last minute, leaving the unpiloted plane and its payload aimed straight at their target. But the explosives detonated too soon, killing Kennedy and his co-pilot before they could jump to safety.

His brother Jack later won the Congressional seat that Joe had hoped to campaign for.